Friday, August 11, 2017

Ukrainians Turning Away from Russia Not Only Politically but Culturally, Experts Say

Paul
Goble

Staunton, August 10 – To no one’s
surprise, Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine has alienated Ukrainians politically
from the former imperial center; but more important but less noticed, it is
increasingly leading them to turn away from Russia culturally, a development
with far-reaching consequences that it may be impossible to reverse.

In an essay for Radio Liberty, Elena
Matusova says that researchers in a wide variety of areas have confirmed that “Ukraine
is coming out from under the cultural influence of Russia” and thus is “becoming
independent not only in a political and government sense but in a cultural one
as well” (ru.krymr.com/a/28669547.html).

The journalist rightly points out
that Russia has been losing influence on the culture of Ukraine” since 1991
when Ukraine achieved its independence, but the process accelerated following
the collapse of the pro-Moscow regime of Viktor Yanukovich and Moscow’s
annexation of Crimea and its continuing war in the Donbass.

Viktor Mironenko, the director of
the Center for Ukrainian Research at Moscow’ Institute of Europe agrees. He
notesthat
“the reduction in the role of Russia has occurred at all levels: political, economic
and cultural” and he explains this by pointing to the rise of “a new generation
of Ukrainians who live in a different reality which is neither Soviet nor
Russian.”

Kyiv poetess Mariya Galina notes
that “in Ukraine, even poets who in the past wrote exclusively in Russian are
today choosing to use the Ukrainian language” and that the war has led to a
fundamental change in the Ukrainian book market with Russian language materials
now occupying a significantly smaller place.

Moreover, she continues, “in Ukraine
now is taking shape a new group of young authors” who are writing in Ukrainian
and are much younger than their counterparts in Russia. They have “enormous
influence” and this shift has reached the point where one can speak of it as
being irreversible.

In her view, Galina says, “Russian
culture will mean for Ukraine approximately as much as Polish culture does.
That is, it will have a certain influence, there will be personal contacts,
some books will appear but there will not be such a powerful turn toward Russia
as there was before the Russian intervention.”

There is a downside to this,
however, both Mironenko and Galina say. The reduction of Russian influence on
Ukrainian cultural will be paralleled by a reduction of Ukrainian influence on
Russian culture.And Russian culture
needs that influence now in particular because that country is undergoing a new
period of “nation building.”